


Glad You Came

by dizzy



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian and Artie meet, ten years down the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glad You Came

They pass each other in a coffee shop once or twice. It's a popular NYADA hangout and Artie doesn't really have friends around there anymore, hasn't for years, but the studio he works in part time isn't too far away and he still thinks they make a decent cappuccino and they have the best biscotti around. 

The first time they just do that weird thing where they hold eye contact for a few seconds too long. It's a moment of unacknowledged recognition, and then the guy Sebastian's with says something and Artie wheels up to the front of the line and that's it. 

The second, some weeks later, there's a nod. Sebastian's with a different guy, and Artie's in a hurry. 

The third time, it's raining. Artie gets his coffee in an oversized mug and takes the wheelchair-friendly table in the back. He books up his laptop and goes rooting for his headphones, cursing quietly when he realizes he must have forgotten them. He glares around like they'll magically appear, but all it does is potentially scare off the cute little blonde who looks like she might have been going to approach. 

Of course. 

That's when Sebastian walks in. It's the first time Artie's been able to look him over unobtrusively, and he does so out of a curiosity more than anything. Sebastian slips out of his jacket and rakes his fingers through his hair, flicking away droplets. He's wearing clothes that are casual but nice, a messenger bag resting against his hip. 

The coffee shop is crowded with people escaping the dreary weather. Artie drops his eyes down when he sees Sebastian scanning the place for somewhere to sit. 

In Sebastian's place, he'd probably do the same - find a familiar face easier to approach - but it's still a surprise when he hears Sebastian say, "I know you, don't I?" 

Artie snorts. "That's one way to put it." 

Sebastian winces slightly. "Yeah, you're one of Blaine's friends? From McKinley?" 

"I was in the glee club, yeah," Artie confirms. "You were a dick to me back then." 

"I was a dick to everyone back then. It was kind of a calling card." Sebastian sits, not waiting for Artie to say he can. "Teenage hormones and parents who only remember you exist when they can brag about you... makes for kind of an unholy terror in a child." 

"Because you're so much older and wiser now," Artie says dryly. "You were the same year as me, right?" 

"Just turned twenty eight," Sebastian says. "And shit no. All getting older has done is teach me that I didn't know a thing as a teenager. I actually flunked out of college - spent all my time sleeping around and doing drugs, it wasn't pretty. My parents cut me off and..." 

"Shit got real, yo?" Artie guesses. 

"Shit got real." Sebastian nods. "I'm cool with them now, I guess. We're not super close, but once I stopped being an embarrassment they wrote me back into the will and all." 

"I'm close to my mom," Artie says. "She actually moved out here a couple years ago. I think she likes the city more than I do." 

"So you've been here since you finished school?" Sebastian asks, sipping his drink. 

"Yep. I used to visit Lima but once Mom moved... I've been back for a couple weddings, but that's just about it. Not at all in... damn, like, three years?" Artie tries to remember. 

"It's hard to go back, isn't it? Once you've seen more?" Sebastian asks. "I get used to how it is here. Just like, noise everywhere, stuff happening always. You can't get bored in a city like this." 

"It takes a certain kind of person, though," Artie says, remembering all those friends he started his journey here with, how none of them are still with him here now. "Someone who knows how to pace themselves, not get burnt out on it. And it helps if there's no one anywhere else you feel torn between." 

"So you didn't leave any bitter exes back behind in Ohio, way back when?" Sebastian asks. 

Artie laughs. "Nah. I mean, I dated some in high school, but that shit was so incestuous." 

"You're telling me." Sebastian smirks. "Dalton was a real _boy's club_ , if you get my drift." 

"I almost wish I didn't," Artie says. "But it's not like McKinley wasn't all about the same-sex lovin'. The girl I lost my virginity to ended up marrying Santana Lopez." 

"Wait, she was the one with the temper and the-" Sebastian mimes boobs. "I remember her. I think we met up once and sang really angrily at each other. Man, high school was weird." 

"You just summed up basically those whole four years for me," Artie says, and they both laugh. It's a step back in time that somehow, miraculously, they can share. Artie hasn't had that in a while. When he tries to tell high school glee club days to his New York friends, he just gets a whole lot of really weird looks. "So yeah, I wasn't really in any _serious_  relationships until I got here." 

"And are you now?" Sebastian asks, the kind of casual chit chat that one has with an old friend (not really friend, but close enough now, Artie supposes) but lacking the awkward twist Artie usually associates with this. 

"Nope." Artie breaks what's left of his biscotti in half and offers part to Sebastian, who takes it with a smile and a quiet thanks. "I haven't really done serious relationships much. There was one girl I was kind of crazy into, but she wouldn't move into a building with an elevator. It's okay, you can laugh."   


"I mean, that _is_  kind of shitty," Sebastian says. "She couldn't have been worth much if she treated you like that." 

"It's cool. I ended up fucking her TA as payback," Artie says.

Sebastian's jaw drops. "Are you serious?" 

"Okay, it wasn't payback," Artie admits. "I had no idea they knew each other. But _damn_ , son, he was fine." 

Sebastian almost chokes on the drink of coffee he'd just taken. "He?" 

Artie quirks a smile at him. Okay, it still hasn't gotten old, just casually coming out like that. It's so... liberating. "Yep." 

"That's... new." Sebastian obviously tries to cover his surprise. "Isn't it? I mean, I thought the whole reason Hummel and Blaine met was because he like the only gay kid in his school?"  

"I was already bullied for being in a wheelchair, you really think me outing myself as bisexual - a sexual orientation most of Ohio doesn't even realize exist - would have made anything _easier_  on me?" Artie says. "Besides, I liked girls. It felt like enough of an accomplishment just to manage dating them." 

"So you didn't get to fool around with guys until college?" Sebastian asks. He looks like maybe he finds it kind of hot, but Artie doesn't want to project. 

"Hold up, son, I didn't say that." Artie lifts an eyebrow at him. "I went to summer camps. Experimentation occurred, that was a thing." 

"Damn." Sebastian looks at him with admiration. "I'm almost sorry I didn't know that back then." 

"Please, like you had eyes for anyone but Blaine Anderson." Artie says it with no malice. He'd been about as invested in that whole drama as he had his high school Spanish class, which is to say - none.   


Sebastian chokes out a laugh. "Talk about a blast from the past. Are he and Hummel married with two point five kids?" 

"Will it upset you if I say yes?" Artie asks. 

Sebastian shakes his head, and Artie sees no hint of untruth in his eyes. "Blaine was like a wet dream. Fun in the moment but I was never gonna wake up with anything but stained sheets and an empty bed. I wouldn't have even known what to do with him if I had gotten him. What about you, you ever hook up with either of them?" 

"Are you kidding me?" Artie asks. "They had their heads too far up each other's asses to realize that there were even other gay kids in Lima. But it's cool, they're good together. And neither of them are my type." 

"So..." Sebastian gives him a coy little grin. "What _is_  your type?" 

And that's when Artie gets that weird little tingle somewhere between his dick and his heart. He knows that feeling. It's that whole bundle of intrigue and attraction and a little sprinkling of just plain chemistry that sometimes blows up in his face and sometimes leads to something awesome. It makes his heart beat a little faster and his palms get damp. It's like a prelude to a crush, the tiniest inkling of infatuation building.

It's awesome and it _sucks_ because it's such a fragile feeling, tempered with the knowledge that it can shatter in an instant. But he isn't in high school anymore. He doesn't have to see a hot guy and let the moment pass.

Even if the hot guy saw him at his most awkward teenage self. Even if the hot guy used to be a first class dick. Thinking back, Artie can't really bring himself to even care about that. He had far worse done to him by people who later on he ended up calling friends. 

"You asking just to ask?" Artie says, trying to be blunt while also allowing some wiggle room for saving face if he _is_  projecting. 

But it doesn't look like he is, because Sebastian just grins at him. He looks more like the guy Artie has vague memories of when he does that, except it's got a matured edge to it - less bravado, more a man who can back up what he's hinting at. "I'm asking because I want to know." 

"I like them a little more edgy," Artie says. "Some sass and some ass." 

Sebastian laughs, smooth and low. "I have both." 

"Well, then." Artie leans forward. So does Sebastian. The table is too large of a surface for them to even come close to touching over it, but the imitation of intimacy is enough. "You want to get a drink some time?" 

Sebastian tilts his head in a little nod. "Yeah, I'd really like that." 

The rain lets up a few minutes later, but Artie rolls away with Sebastian's number in his phone and a sense of promise lighting him within. 


End file.
